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New Owner of Times Building to Turn Truck Bays Into Shops

The truck bays of the New York Times headquarters at 229 West 43rd Street -- once the maws of a roaring, round-the-clock factory in the middle of the theater district, consuming tons of newsprint rolls and disgorging tens of thousands of newspapers an hour -- will be turned into storefronts under a plan by the building's new owners.

Most bays on the south side of the building, a landmark facade that was built in three phases from 1912 to 1932, will frame smaller, glass-fronted retail units; a restaurant, perhaps, or a bookstore. The bays on the less noteworthy 44th Street side, facing Shubert Alley and not covered by a landmark designation, would serve as an entrance to one or more large stores below ground in the soaring and now vacant pressroom where this newspaper was printed until 1997.

All told, there will be about 100,000 square feet of retail space in the 15-story building, said Rob Speyer, a senior managing director of Tishman Speyer Properties. In partnership with the New York City Employees' Retirement System and the Teachers' Retirement System, Tishman Speyer bought the building from The New York Times Company in 2004 for $175 million. The Times is to remain at 43rd Street as a tenant until 2007, when it is to move to a new headquarters tower now under construction on Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets.

Tishman Speyer anticipates a substantial renovation of the 43rd Street building but no new construction on the site. "The bones of this building are spectacular," Mr. Speyer said. It will seek new office tenants. After renovation -- Mr. Speyer would not put a price tag on the project -- the building will reopen in 2009.

The renovation plans, by Gabellini Sheppard Associates, are to be presented today to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. In recent years, the architect Michael Gabellini worked with Mr. Speyer on recreating and reopening the observation deck atop 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

Only the exterior alterations are subject to the commission's approval. These include a restoration of the arches in the six westernmost bays of the building, which are now partly obscured. Another bay on the west side would be used to expand the ornate central entranceway. Between each bay, new Indiana limestone columns on Deer Isle granite bases would be added, reproducing the long-lost originals. The storefronts would largely be glass, framed in aluminum that will be plated to resemble bronze, Mr. Gabellini said.

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The illuminated globes between each bay will be restored. They now say "Times." It is unclear what they will say in the future.

That a printing plant in Times Square should become a shopping center "tells so much about the organic change of the city," said Robert B. Tierney, chairman of the landmarks commission. "I think it's a wonderful, positive transition -- positive's too weak a word -- an exciting transition, both for The Times as an institution and for that building, which will remain vital."

After the 43rd Street presses stopped rolling and before the Times Company sold the building, it had also been planning a retail conversion of the truck bays, which now stand largely silent and sealed by roll-down doors.

"There's got to be a better use for that space," Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The Times and chairman of the Times Company, said yesterday. "When we shut down our pressroom, I believe we were the largest manufacturing facility in Manhattan, which is crazy -- that we were producing that many hundreds of thousands of newspapers from Times Square."

Asked whether he had any personal memories of the temper-fraying, ulcer-inducing, profanity-encouraging scenes that could sometimes result from delivery trucks and tractor-trailers coming and going in the middle of the theater district, Mr. Sulzberger, who spent a year as a night production manager at the newspaper, said: "I do. But nothing you could print in the pages of a family newspaper."

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A version of this article appears in print on March 21, 2006, on Page B00003 of the National edition with the headline: New Owner of Times Building to Turn Truck Bays Into Shops. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe